exhausted, my son is out of control and he scares me

Well, I dont really even know where to begin. I am having problems with my 3yr old son. He was born 9weeks premature and spent the first month of his life in an incubator. I dont know if his prematurity has anything to do with his problems. Beside the fact that he was premature he is completely up to par with children his age and otherwise normal. Well it all started about six months ago, Bently (my son) would throw 2year old tantrums, then just recently before his third birthday they turned into violent freak outs, punching himself in the face and head, smashing his head into things, and smashing anything and anyone is sight. I do not believe in spanking or physical violence to try to control your child. So I really have no idea where this anger has come from. Over time its getting worse and worse, he refuses to let anyone even his father do anything for him, and I mean anything. EVERYTHING has to be done by ME. He is showing signs of obsessive compulsive disorder in ways of rituals, he will have complete meltdowns if everything is not done his way. An example being, if we are walking down the street from a store to the car and he realizes at the car he wanted me to carry him from the store to the car, he actually will lose it very crazily and scream to try to get me to walk all the way back into the store and then pick him up and take him to the car. Laying down in the street pulling his hair until I either drag him to the car and force him in his seat or just give in. I try not to give into these ridiculous things, but sometimes it seems its the only way to get him back to reality Its to the point where I cant even take him into public places and he wont even talk to anyone else including other children and my family. If anyone talks to him he puts on the most evilest glare and starts screaming words that dont make sense. He will not go to sleep, it literally takes 3-5hours just to put him to bed at night. I dont know what to do or where to begin getting help any advice or help would be greatly appreciated. I am exhausted.

well that is how i feel some times with mine .he was diognosed adhd odd.and i have my hands full he is only 5and im trying to get all the help i can.have you tryed getting him tested my son has had more tests then you can shake a stick at.and im still trying to get some answers on why he does the things he does because i did not bring him up around anything that would influence that kind of behavior

Welcome, I don't know the Canada system, but the first step is to get him evaluated. Find out what is wrong, why he is getting so frustrated. It could be many things and not one doctor is going to be able to look at all the possiblities. The best would be a multi-disciplinary evaluation at a children's hospital. I couldn't do that, so I'm going to the doctors one at a time getting my kids evaluated. It'd be better to do it all at once with the doctors all there talking to one another. A book that might help immediately is Ross Greene's Explosive Child. Just reading it can change the way you look at your child, the meltdowns, and giving in to ridiculous things.

Hopefully some Canadans will come along to help with how to get an evaluation in Canada.

Wow. Sounds a lot like my son. One of his favorite things to do when he is in a "mood" is when I am eating, he says he wants a bite. I offer him one and he refuses it. When I put the bite in my mouth he throws a fit and will not take a different bite because he wanted the bite that I have just eaten. The ensuing tantrum sometimes lasts for 30 minutes, even though he is very intellegent and I know he knows it is impossible for me to give him the bite I have already swallowed. Sometimes I wish I could just throw up and offer it to him!!!

Welcome on board. I agree with needabreak and emilyislost about getting your son tested. I don't know what Canada has to offer in the way of what they call here an *intermediate unit*, that helps with children ages 3-5, or *base service unit* that helps with those with mental illness, but where I live in Pennsylvania, they're the ones that sent us for the first evaluation for our son. I know it's not easy and I hope you get some answers soon. Welcome, once again.

OK, some suggestions for all of you - we seem to have a newbie convention on this thread! hey, it happens, but be aware we have to give priority to the person who started the thread. I would advise the rest of you to post about your own situation in more detail. However...

Getting a copy of "The Explosive Child" by Ross Greene is a good idea. But your kids are all very young - for an advance idea of this book, go to Early Childhood and look at the post there about adapting "The Explosive Child" to very young kids. It's a great book in my opinion, but you need to try it for yourself. And if there is another problem not diagnosed or dealt with properly, you will only have limited success.

So my next suggestion - keep heading for evaluation. You need a multidisciplinary evaluation, I would recommend a neuropsychologist to be on the team somewhere (get better advice on this from others nearer your location) but a website for you to look at - www.childbrain.com. Do their online Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) questionnaire. It's NOT diagnostic, so you can't decide yourself what is wrong. Even if the test scores as "significant Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD)" or whatever, it's still only something to think about. But you can print the results (whatever you score for him, including normal) and take the printout to the specialist appointment for their opinion. But in the meantime it could give you some sense of direction.

We can't diagnose here either, but we can share experiences and offer suggestions. I'm suggesting the Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) questionnaire now because your story sounds sufficiently familiar to me, and it was a good indicator for us.

Something else important, especially if you think the Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) score is worth following up, is to organise a speech pathology assessment. You may consider his speech is fine, and it may be - but an expert's report that is more specific about his results would be very useful both now and in years to come, if ever Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) is considered. If we were getting difficult child 3 tested now for the first time, he would test as normal for speech and language. However, his HISTORY of language delay (thanks to an early assessment) makes his diagnosis undisputed. And believe me, we've had people dispute it and I've been very glad of that report to get difficult child 3's support reinstated and back on track, when educators try to derail it.

The sooner you have some idea of what is going on, the sooner you can begin to help your child. Meanwhile, we're here.

A strong recommendation - be discreet. Avoid using real names (that's why we abbreviate) because some people find themselves being cyber-stalked and if you are careful enough, you can vent here to your heart's content and know it won't follow you back into the 'real' world.

ODD is rarely a stand alone diagnosis--most kids here, with various disorders, have ODD behaviors. Believe it or not, those behaviors sound familiar to me. Does he speak appropriately for his age? How is his eye contact? Can he transition from one activity to another? What about loud noise, textures, foods? Does your family have any psychiatric or neurological disorders on the tree (either side?) Substance abuse? I'm not a doctor, but he's exhibiting some traits of autistic spectrum disorder, higher functioning, which is terribly hard to diagnosis. in younger kids. Preemies are at a higher risk for this too. Is he in an early intervention program? in my opinion (I've been through the mill getting my kid rightly diagnosed) rather than focusing on behavioral modification, which I don't believe would work with this child, I'd go for the jugular--the root cause and how to treat it. Because of his age, any diagnosis is subject to changing as he gets older and more stuff shows up. In my layperson's opinion, I'd see if a children or university hospital will do a multidisciplinary evaluation on him at his age. The earlier you attack these things, the better the outcome. A MDE a group of professionals assess him in every area, which is at least a start. I wouldn't focus on discipline. I doubt he's doing anything to be "bad." Buy "The Explosive Child" by Ross Greene and use that method until you get a firmer handle on what's going on and get him in some sort of treatment. Hugs to you. I had a child like this; he's a happy thirteen year old now. Hang in there and get him appropriate interventions and a good evaluation. (No, not all professionals are created equal--some are superior to others in finding out what's wrong, which is why I suggest a MDE). I hope you have access to this sort of evaluation in Canada (just noticed you're from there)!

Your little one is typical in wanting you to do everything for him. Not so typical in making you re-walk from the store to the car so he can be carried. That does sound a bit Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) to me.
I would recommend starting with your pediatrician. Sometimes they blow us moms off with - 'yeah parenting is hard work.' (I got that one!). If you get that find out if you can get a referral to a neuropshych.